Mars Hill Staff Conference Day Two...

...was AWESOME!!! Unfortunately, I did not bring my iPhone (which is my camera), but another new intern here at Mars Hill, Melissa, did, and I asked her to take some shots of me climbing the rock wall, so I'll post those tomorrow. We all had a great time today, I didn't get signed up for the softball games because we didn't know that we would be able to go until Monday afternoon, but I did get to play umpire for the last few innings of the last game. Other than that, I played a few games of Volleyball, went for a cruise in the paddle boats, climbed the rock wall three times (totally addicted now!), and ate some great bbq!

   I was also able to have a couple great conversations with Pastor Mark, tell him how I got here, how God totally cleared the path and led me down it, how I never heard from Tennessee about Bible College, how honored and blessed I was to be here, and ask him any advice he might have for me after telling him what I felt God was calling me to. He's really a great guy, very personable and approachable, and humble in my estimation. Which is refreshing, considering how many people he reaches through the ministry God has entrusted to him. He welcomed and thanked me for being here and especially for being at West Seattle, because our campus here is, and has been undergoing some major pruning and is adjusting to getting back on track (that's why they brought Kyle and Pastor Bubba back from Ballard), and invited me to go to the Church Planting Boot Camp Seminar the end of September. It was awesome, because he knows I'm interning full-time and doing ReTrain, and so I asked if I would have to pay for it, and he said "no, just tell them when you sign up that I said you could go for free." And then as we were all leaving he came up to me again and shook my hand again and I thanked him for letting us interns come to the staff conference and he said thanks for coming, and said he'd see me at the Boot Camp in September. I know he's just a servant of Christ, but just as he respects and looks up to Spurgeon, he's someone I greatly respect and after getting to talk to him more today, umpire the softball game he was playing, and see the interaction he has with his wife and five kids and everyone else on staff, I respect him even more. Everyone I've met here at Mars Hill, from my new friends and brothers Kyle Firstenberg and Erik Henrikson, to the other Pastors', and other staff, has been real genuine, on fire for Jesus, friendly, welcoming, and accepted me right onto the team. 

   I also met and had a great conversation with Pastor Samuel Choi, a former PCA Pastor who knows Jim Bordwine from Presbytery. He and I discussed some issues that have been going on recently with the PCA, and what brought him to Mars Hill in the first place. It's a book written by Pastor Mark Driscoll called "Radical Reformission", and I intend to read it between class readings. 

...well, time to study and do some more reading and praying, more tomorrow!!

"I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ." ~ Philippians 1:3-6